Mohammed Atiku-Abubakar, a son of Nigeria’s former vice-president, has now tested negative for coronavirus.

“I have just received my second consecutive negative result,” Mr Atiku-Abubakar told PREMIUM TIMES Monday afternoon. “My discharge is currently being processed, and I hope to be home this evening.”

The Nigerian disease control office does not comment on individual cases.

Mr Atiku-Abubakar was first confirmed to have contracted the virus on March 19 and was subsequently transferred to an isolation centre on the outskirts of the Nigerian capital, Abuja.

The 31-year-old, however, failed to test negative for the virus until today, a 40-day ordeal that experts said could be amongst the longest ever recorded in the country since the first infection was confirmed in Lagos February 27.

Coronavirus, whose latest variant COVID-19 has killed hundreds of thousands and sickened millions across the world, has an average of 14 days to run its course after infection. Most Nigerians known publicly to have contracted COVID-19 were treated and discharged by the Nigerian disease control office within 14 days.

Why Mr Atiku-Abubakar took 40 days to recover from a disease known to me mostly virulent amongst people above 65 remained unclear, although some scientists estimated the virus could last as long as 37 days in a human’s body.